Читать книгу Winnowed Wisdom - Stephen Leacock - Страница 13

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I have been much impressed lately by the way in which the habit of "scathing denunciation," back and forward across the Atlantic, is growing in the press. Every time when international news gets a little slack somebody lands off a steamer and says something about British Education or about American women that sets the whole press into a flame. The people who say the things are of no possible importance. They are for the most part people of whom nobody ever heard before and never will again. But that doesn't matter. The newly arrived visitor stands up on the deck of his steamer, gets the reporters all grouped around him in a ring and then begins to "denounce." As a result next morning the newspapers of the entire continent carry news items such as the following, and the public seethes with indignation.

Denounces American Education

New York, April --:

"Mr. Farquhar McSquirt, who holds a high position in the Kindergarten Department of the Scottish Orphans Asylums at Dumfoolish, landed yesterday from the Aquitania on a tour of inspection of the American and Canadian schools and at once uttered a scathing denunciation of education on this continent. He considers that the whole educational system of America is punk. He admits that a great many pupils attend school on this continent but denies that they learn a thing. He considers that the average boy of twelve in the Orkney Islands knows more than a graduate of Harvard and Yale. The American student, he says, has never learned to think; whereas the Scottish boy begins to think very soon after he learns to talk. Mr. McSquirt considers that the principal cause of the defect of American education is the utter lack of qualified teachers. He claims that the average American school teacher is a complete nut. Few of them stay more than ten years in the profession whereas in Scotland the average period is well over fifty years."

As soon as this kind of thing has been spilt all over the map of North America, the next thing to do is to mop it up. The newspapers send out enquiries to ten heads of ten great universities, and they all answer that while they have not the pleasure of knowing Mr. McSquirt personally--which means that they hope they never will know him--they emphatically deny his strictures on our education. They claim that the average American boy, while he may not have such long ears as a Scotch boy, is more receptive. He may not know as much as a Scottish student but what he knows he has digested, a thing the Scottish student has little chance to do. After this the public is soothed and the affair dies down.

Of course it must not be supposed that these "denunciations" are all in one direction. I don't mean for a moment that they are always directed against this continent. Not at all. That merely depends on which direction the traveller is going in. If he is headed the other way and is standing on British soil the denunciation is turned around and it runs something after this fashion.

Denounces Oxford

London, April --:

"Mr. Phineas Q. Cactus, T.Q., P.F., Principal of the Texas Normal Institute for Feeble Minded Navajo Indians, has just attracted wide attention here by a letter to the Morning Post in which he utters a scathing denunciation of the University of Oxford. He claims that at Oxford a student learns nothing. He admits that they go there and they stay there, but he says that during the whole time in Oxford no student ever thinks. In the schools of Texas no student is admitted unless he has passed an examination in thinking and during his entire course thinking is made compulsory at every step. Principal Cactus considers that Oxford dulls a man's mind. He says that after a course at Oxford the student is fit for nothing except the Church or the bar or the House of Lords. He claims that the average Oxford professor would make but a poor showing as a cowboy in Texas."

Education is a splendid topic for this kind of business. But perhaps an even better one is found in getting after our women and girls and denouncing them across the Atlantic. This is always good for ten days excitement. The sample press notice is as follows:

Denouncing American Girls

New York, April --:

"Lady Violet Longshanks, a direct descendant of Edward I, in the male line, landed yesterday morning in New York from the Rule Britannia. Lady Violet has at once excited widespread comment by an interview which she gave on the dock to a representative of the press. Her ladyship, who represents the haut ton of the oldest noblesse and who is absolutely carte blanche, gave expression to a scathing denunciation of the American girl. She declares that the American girl of to-day is without manners. No American girl, the Countess claims, knows how to enter a room, still less how to get out of one. The American girl, according to Lady V. does not know how to use her voice, still less how to use her feet. At the same time the countess expressed herself fascinated with the size of the United States which she considers is undoubtedly a country of the future. Lady V. thinks it probable that many of the shortcomings of the American girl may be due to her habit of chewing tobacco."

And so, of course, as soon as Lady V. has said all this it has to be "mopped up" just like the other stuff. The press sends people to interview five heads of five women's colleges and they all declare that the American girl is as gentle as a lamb, and that if Lady V. really gets to know the American girl she will find that the American girl can use her feet, and will. As to the question of chewing tobacco they need only say that perhaps Lady V. is unaware that in all the first class women's colleges chewing tobacco is expressly forbidden not only on the campus, but in the bedrooms.

This reassures the public and gradually the trouble subsides and everybody cools off and the American girl gets right back to where she was. And then some American lady takes a trip over to England and starts the whole trouble again in a reversed direction, like this:

Denounces English Girls

London, April --:

"Mrs. Potter Pancake of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, President of the American Women's International Friendship League, has just jarred English society off its hinges by a sweeping condemnation, handed out from the window of her hotel, directed against English girls. Mrs. Pancake claims that the English girl is absolutely without grace and that her movements are inferior to those of a horse. Mrs. Pancake states further that the English girl moves like an alligator and is unable to sit down. She considers that these defects are mainly caused by drinking gin in inordinate quantities."

Whereupon trouble breaks out all over the British press from Cornwall to the Orkney Islands. The Archbishop of Canterbury is consulted and issues a statement to the effect that in his opinion the English girl is more graceful than a cow and that he has yet to see an English girl of the cultivated class take what he considers too much gin. This eases things up a bit, and the good effect is presently reinforced by a letter to the Times from the professor of Arthopedic Surgery at the Royal College of Physicians who says that he has made anthropometric measurements of over a thousand English girls and that their shapes suit him down to the ground. After that the trouble blows over and international friendship is just getting settled again and there is every prospect of the payment of the British debt and the scrapping of both navies and the rise of the pound sterling away over par, when someone starts it all off again with this:

Thinks Americans Crooked

"Mr. Joseph Squidge, M.P. Labor member for the mining district of Hiddaway-under-the-Sea, has just returned from a three weeks tour of America. Mr. Squidge, who visited the entire United States from New York to Yonkers, has just given an interview to the local paper at Hiddaway in which he says that public honesty is extinct in America. He considers that the entire population of the United States, not excepting the criminal classes, is crooked. He says that in America a man's word is never taken and that even in hotels a guest is required to sign his name."

This of course is too much--more than any decent people can stand, and as a consequence some one is at once sent over to England, either by accident or by design with the result that in a week or two the whole American press carries a despatch as follows:

Thinks British Dishonest

New York, April --:

"Edward Angle Eye, a journalist representing five thousand American Farmers Newspapers, has just cabled from London to Coffin Creek, Idaho, to say that the British are all liars. He says that with the possible exception of the Prince of Wales and Queen Mary, it is impossible to trust anybody in the British Isles. Public morality he claims has reached its lowest ebb and is washing away. He attributes the trouble to the large influx of Chinese in London."

And after that, can you wonder if we find it a little hard to keep peace and good will across the Atlantic.